The present invention relates to cutlery devices, such as knives, and in particular to a cutlery device which is balanced for use by a chef or other user, as well as a sharpening aid for a cutlery device.
Cutlery devices such as knives are well known and are provided in many different sizes and shapes for particular uses. A typical fixed blade knife has a blade portion at one end, generally with a point at a distal end, and a handle at an opposite end. The blade usually has one sharpened edge along its length and an opposite unsharpened edge referred to as a back of the blade. An extension of the blade, called the tang, extends into the handle portion and is usually surrounded by or encased in an additional handle piece or pieces forming a shape to be grasped by a user. An area between the blade and the handle is often provided in an enlarged form as a hilt which, among other things, helps to prevent slippage of the user""s fingers onto the sharpened portion of the blade.
Many users of knives grasp the knife solely in the handle area, keeping all of the fingers and thumb behind the hilt during use. In order to make the knife useful over a long period of time with such an arrangement, it is important to have the center of gravity of the knife located nearly centrally within the handle portion in order to provide a balance to the overall knife which is located in the area being gripped by the user. Typically the tang extends rearwardly from the blade at a constant thickness such as shown in U.S. Pat. Nos. D316,015 and 4,470,327.
Oftentimes the handle is formed of two separate pieces which are attached to opposite sides of the tang and are secured on to the tang by rivets which may be of equal sizes as shown in U.S. Pat. Nos. 2,142,137 and 4,470,327.
Chefs and other food service professionals grasp knives and similar cutlery devices in a somewhat different manner than domestic users, that is, they position their hand more towards the tip of the cutlery device, oftentimes placing the index finger and thumb forward of the hilt. In order for the cutlery device to be used over a long period of time without a build up of fatigue, it would be an improvement to provide such a device with a balance more forward, toward the tip, than is present in many available cutlery devices.
The sharpening devices for cutlery, such as knives, are known and typically include a complex arrangement to hold the cutlery device at a particular angle for sharpening, such as disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,185,958, or provide some other arrangement for engaging and holding the knife blade at a particular orientation relative to the sharpening surface, such as disclosed in U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,799,335; 4,991,357; 5,199,225 or 5,390,431. In many instances the user is required to hold the knife at an angle other than vertical for sharpening which is an unnatural and somewhat cumbersome. Further, the apparatus for holding the sharpening surfaces in some of these prior constructions is complex and thus costly.
The present invention provides a balanced cutlery device for use by chefs and other professional food service personnel wherein the cutlery device is normally grasped at the forward part of the handle, with a portion of the hand extending over the hilt. In order to provide a comfortable balance for the cutlery device, the tang is tapered toward the rear of the handle in order to diminish the weight of the tang in a rearward direction of the cutlery device. In a preferred embodiment, the back of the blade is generally rounded to allow the user to place an index finger on the back of the blade to comfortably apply pressure on the back during slicing.
In an embodiment, the handle portion of the cutlery device is curved on its side faces to provide additional comfort to the user. However, this requires different sized rivets to be used to secure the handle pieces together.
Finally, a sharpening aid is provided for the cutlery device comprising a stand for a sharpener that allows the user to maintain the knife in a vertical orientation while sharpening, rather than requiring the user to hold the knife at a sharpening angle.